Life in Rio
by Witch08
Summary: ADOPTED! Read author's note first! Nico finds himself yearning to leave everything behind and stay in Rio. But can he leave his family and everything he's ever known to sing with a bird he's just met?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Hey, everybody! As you heard, Rehtribution probably won't be back for a long while. After hearing what she's gone through, while she's in my prayers, I have expressed that I would like to continue this with her help. So with permission from Rehtribution, I have adopted "Life in Rio" and will continue her work for this. Instead of just a sequel, I may even make this into a series with Rehtribution as my Beta for it. "Life in Rio" will relatively stay the same except for Chapter seven, which was the long awaited Best of the Branch singing contest. I'll be tweaking that chapter a bit to make it more original and separate from the movie. Since I'm in the process of unpacking from a recent moving, I'll be posting one chapter a week, maybe even sooner, in order to give me time to make changes to chapter seven as well as plan for the sequel and start writing it. Warning though: I'm in my last year of college now, and once fall term starts, updates will slow down and I will also be trying to update some of my other fics. So please be patient with and enjoy! All credit for this fic and the idea goes to Rehtribution! So give her some love!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Rio or Rehtribution's characters!**

* * *

**Life In Rio**

**Chapter 1: Arrival in Rio**

There was something about Rio that always called to the young canary that was stuck in a cage with his parents and older brother. Every year they would be taken to Rio with their humans and every year Nico sneaked away to enjoy the sights and, more importantly, Samba. Samba, since he was first taken to Rio, had quickly become his passion. He listened to it when he could find it on his human's radio and when he couldn't he sang it. His parents and even his brother, Victor, didn't understand why he loved it so much.

"I can hear you thinking from here Nico. What's going on?" Victor murmured, careful of their parents asleep a peg above them.

"I'm just excited. I want to stay in Rio, I want to live there." His eyes started shining with eagerness.

"Well it's your lucky day then bro. Our humans decided to move to Rio. If you hadn't been so busy singing that Bamba stuff you would've heard."

Nico gaped. It wasn't possible. There was absolutely no way the humans decided to live in Rio.

"It's _Samba. You're_ not pulling my tail feathers again are you?" Better safe than sorry after all.

"Of course not, we're seriously staying." He paused before continuing. "For a month."

Nico felt his anger boil up. "That's not funny!"

Of course his parents woke up.

"What did you do this time Victor..." Their mother asked, fluttering to their peg. He hated that cage.

"I didn't do anything! Shorty here-"

Their mother hissed. "Don't call your brother that."

"Fine, _Nico_ here wanted to know how long we were staying so I told him. He just overreacted. Right _Nico?_"

Their mother didn't notice but Nico could hear the underlying threat.

"Yeah. I overreacted. Sorry for waking you guys up."

Their mother stared at them for a little while longer, finally sighing into the too cold air of the luggage storage area.

"Alright. Just try to keep quiet you two. We should get there soon."

Somehow, Nico knew it was to placate his brother that she said that. A bored Victor was nothing to laugh at.

While their mother flew back to join her mate and Victor settled down to sleep, Nico found himself lost in his thoughts again. Rio was a beautiful place with a forest that he was only ever able to see from the distance. While he wouldn't admit it to anyone, he was afraid to go into the forest alone. Who knew what kind of reception he would get. They could welcome him like family, or they could attack him like an enemy. He was too afraid to see Rio as anything else than a paradise to chance the latter.

Glancing at his sleeping family and the mass of suitcases surrounding them, he settled down on his side of the peg to sleep.

He hated this cage.

Pedro stretched along his nest and looked to the other side of the hollow. There was a spare nest he had built as a just in case measure. He had thought that the nest would make the hollow look a little more full or even just a little more homey. All it had done so far was make it look even more empty and borderline desperate. Rafael visited when he could, but he had two kids and another on the way.

Dragging himself from bed, Pedro grumbled to himself and flew out to get ready for the day. It was a little after noon and he needed to get something to eat.

Gliding towards the beach and frowning at the heat that was wafting from below, Pedro let a feeling of calm overtake him. Something was going to change that day, he could feel it.

The plane landed roughly and jolted Nico from his sleep and his perch. He fluttered, it's hard to actually fly in a cage, up to the top perch and gripped onto it tightly. Everything shook and bounced while the plane tried to slow down.

Nico was finally in Rio again. His heart leaped into his throat and his excitement coursed through his body, warming him from the freezing air around him.

Nico glanced at his disgruntled family and smiled a bit. He planned on spending his vacation his way, not theirs. Theirs consisted of waiting for the humans to get back so they could talk to them. His, well, his consisted of whatever he wanted it too.

The plane slowed to a stop and the hatch was opened, letting the neon vested humans toss the cargo onto the belt to be transferred to the baggage claim. Nico pressed himself closer to the peg he was on, wrapping his wings around it to stabilize himself more for the trip to come. When one of the humans finally got to them, somewhere in the middle of the sea of suitcases, the man sighed and picked up the cage with the utmost care. When he got to the hatch, where the four birds were momentarily blinded from the onslaught of light, he put the cage on the belt and their adventure began.

Nico was given about five minutes of scenery before they were driven off with the rest of the luggage to another, more numerous, set of belts. This was why Nico hated planes.

The belt led them onto another belt and from there a slide. Then they were pulled onto another belt and promptly hit by a black suitcase, knocking all four of them askew. Even though he was hanging onto his peg for dear life, Nico was knocked to the side and had to hang on by his wings.

"I hate airports..." Nico smiled at the agreeing murmurs below him.

Pedro whistled to himself, still trying to find the words to the song he had been creating. It was hard. Every time he thought he had a part of it, it felt wrong. That, and it sounded like a duet and he would happily be the backup singer for it if he could just find someone to help him with it. Rafael was an okay singer but his voice didn't have the tune he needed it too.

Swallowing a couple more fries from the leftovers some tourists had left, Pedro took off from the table, heading towards one of the clubs he'd frequented. The Branch was the most popular club in all of Rio for birds. A lot of its fame was because of Pedro himself in fact. At night the club was Samba only, but during the day it was karaoke for anyone who wanted to give it a go. There were a few that were kind of good. The rest however, not so much.

Glancing up at a landing plane Pedro smirked. More tourists meant more fries and he could appreciate free french fries.

Rafael carefully tiptoed out of his family hollow. His kids and wife, Eva, were, thankfully, preoccupied and if he could get lunch quickly enough, he might be able to go out and enjoy himself for a while.

Gliding a fair distance away before chancing a flap, Rafael began his search for his family's meal. His search was only deterred by a plane flying overhead from America. He'd have to check if any new birds were coming to visit. Some of them wanted away from the pet life and he seemed to be the one to help them out. It was hard being famous sometimes.

Nico glared at the 12-year-old picking up their square cage. He glanced away when he saw a scarlet macaw perched in the rafters above them, watching them carefully. Canaries must not have been a common occurrence around there.

"Hey Nico, I dare you to sing." Victor whispered to him, a smirk on his beak.

"What? No way, the humans will freak out again saying that I'm 'such a pretty bird'!"

"That's why I want you to sing retard. I_ dare_ you."

Nico groaned. If he refused Victor would call him a coward for weeks and not to mention the beatings.

"Fine."

Victor snickered and scooted away while Nico took a breath and started to sing his song, Fly Love.

Pedro swooped across the sky, enjoying the 90 degree weather and the faint breeze from the nearby ocean. His whistling paused and he glanced around, a pleasant tune brought from the breeze.

"-Don't know how it happened, don't know why but you don't really need a reason-"

The voice was soft and was, more or less, absolutely perfect. It was _the _voice. The one he needed for his song.

Listening hard, Pedro was able to find a summer house with the door open. Inside the house, he was able to see from the window ledge he landed on, there was a square cage with three yellow birds and a white one inside. One of the yellow boys had orange on his eyelids and a white chest and under wings. The tips of his wings and the ends of his tail feathers had brown on them. He was singing with his eyes closed and his yellow feathers were vibrant unlike the other two who had black on the tips of every feather. The white one seemed to be the mother and what looked like the father were watching the singing bird with pride. The last bird seemed to be snickering as the humans were saying "What a pretty bird."

The singing bird didn't seem to notice, singing and dancing as much as he could with out falling off of the peg he was restricted to.

As the song came to a close the singing bird blinked and glanced around before bowing his head and shuffling his feet.

Seemed that the singer had stage fright. With the way that, possibly, his brother was laughing he didn't blame the poor guy. Anyone would feel embarrassed if someone was laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.

Taking one last glance at the shy bird, who he thought looked up for a moment, Pedro took off towards the Branch. He'd have to come back with Rafael to get him out later.

Nico shuffled his feet for a bit before glancing up at the window, blinking at a red crested cardinal. He seemed...intrigued for lack of a better word. As the humans walked off Nico fluttered to the side of the cage, clinging to the bars. Victor was still laughing and he wanted nothing more than to leave that cage and never go back. But his family would never agree with him and he felt bound to them. Besides, without them he was alone.

Waiting for the humans to retreat to their beds, he carefully unlatched the cage door and opened it.

"You're not doing this again are you?" His mother asked, frowning. She was born and raised in a cage. The moment Rico had found out how to open it, he had gone everywhere in the human's house and was happy with the somewhat freedom. The consequences, however, nearly made him completely break down.

"It's not that bad. Besides, we've been in this cage_ forever_ I need to stretch my wings for a little while."

Before they could reply, he had dove from the cage and glided out the door and onto the sidewalk.

Rio. He was finally in Rio. Even though his family was completely against his views, he would do what he wanted. Speaking of which, where was that cardinal?

Looking at the window he frowned. The cardinal was gone. Glancing at the sun blazing in the sky, Nico found himself flying towards the beach.

Pedro frowned, landing a few blocks away from the yellow bird with the perfect voice. He should have sneaked into the home and asked his name or something. He probably seemed like a stalker now.

Snorting, Pedro continued his flight to the Branch, chuckling to himself. The bird probably didn't even want to leave that cage.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This chapter is still the same as Rehtribution's! I did not make any changes to this chapter. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Rio or Rehtribution's characters!**

* * *

**Life In Rio**

**Chapter 2: Meeting New Friends**

Rafael frowned at the scarlet macaw's words. It seemed that there was a family of canaries that had landed in Rio and one of them seemed to fit the bill of a "free bird".

"Thanks Mikah. I'll go see if I can find this canary. Pedro might get some competition from this one if he's as good as you say."

Mikah grinned and nodded. "He's amazing. He must have been trained or something."

With a few last parting words the two flew off in different directions, one to the airport and the other towards the beach.

Nico landed on a less populated area of the beach, stretching his wings in the salt spray. It was nice to get away from his nightmare of a brother. Victor had his moments of course, but he was mostly a bully and the one causing most of his injuries. Victor had been the only one to stay with their parents from his clutch and the story was the same for Nico. They were just the lucky birds it seemed.

Ruffling his feathers in the humid temperatures, Nico jumped into the air, soaring above the thousands of umbrellas that humans had put up. He was the only bird left of both clutches that sang. It was kind of annoying, seeing as the humans had made him their favorite because of it.

"Hey pipsqueak!"

Nico sped up a bit, choosing to ignore the insulting remark. Thinking back on the situation, that was probably the worst thing he could have done in his position. It wasn't 10 seconds afterward that he was grabbed by his tail feathers and thrown to the sand. The velocity sent him plummeting too fast for him to correct himself and he ended up with a beak full of sand.

"Aww, I'm sorry. Did that hurt?"

Nico glanced back to see a group of seagulls surrounding him, one of which seemed to be the leader. They were all snickering at him and murmuring to each other.

"We haven't seen you around here before pipsqueak. Are you lost?"

The faked caring was getting to Nico. He wasn't having the best day.

"My name is Nico you crooked beaked scavengers!"

By the shocked looks he got as he stood up, no one really did that to them.

"You're gonna get it pipsqueak."

Somehow, Nico didn't think they meant a free tour.

* * *

Pedro couldn't help but sigh in relief when the final bird left the stage. They had a serious hearing problem if they thought screeching unintelligible words at the top of their lungs was singing.

"Pedro! Are you singing tonight?"

Pedro looked at the macaws walking over to him. Schooling his look into one of uncaring calm, he shook his head.

"I'm not in the mood."

The sad looks that he received stroked his ego just a little bit.

"Soon though? We want to hear that new song." A green macaw said, nodding with a hyacinth macaw and a scarlet macaw.

Pedro shrugged and walked off, leaving the three to gossip with some nearby honeycreepers. It was hard when you got a reputation. You had to change how you act in public so that you didn't lose any reputation.

The Branch would take around an hour to set up for the nightly Samba raves so, walking out of the club, Pedro flew up to a nearby roof to sunbathe. The yellow bird earlier really did have the perfect voice but he couldn't just fly up and demand the bird to sing with him. He'd have to get to know the bird, see how he did in front of a crowd of birds. There was a lot of details that he couldn't look over and with the competition coming up, he wasn't sure if he could get everything done in time.

* * *

Rafael kept his eyes peeled for a little yellow bird along the shoreline. One of his contacts had reported him flying this way and the beach was a huge place. The number of tourists never seemed to diminish throughout the year and the umbrellas never seemed to leave. Getting into a less populated area of the beach, he frowned at a group of seagulls.

It was weird to see seagulls on the ground, especially so many away from any food. Unless...

Diving down to the group of seagulls, Rafael started yelling.

"What do you guys think you're doing!"

The group looked up at him and were about to go back to whatever they were so enthralled with before they recognized him. The reaction would be something he would have to tell his kids when they were older because seeing a good six full grown seagulls trip over themselves to get away from him was hilarious.

The damage they had done, however, was not.

In the middle of where all the gulls had gathered was a bloody and beaten canary, his eyes clenched tightly against whatever the seagulls had inflicted on him.

Rafael sighed and put a wing over his face. He would have to talk to a couple contacts about this one to "deal" with the seagulls.

Fluttering over to the canary, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Hey, are you alright?"

Nico barely had a chance. The seagulls had dove at him too quickly for him to escape their circle around him and all he could do was curl up and protect as much of himself as he could.

He was shocked when he heard their feet digging into the sand in an attempt to get away from something. He didn't think that he could handle anything that could scare off six seagulls.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Nico carefully cracked one of his eyes open, flinching when he saw a toucan hovering over him.

"Y-yeah..." Nico murmured, slowly righting himself. He hissed in pain, discovering the cuts and bruises that he hadn't really felt before.

"Come on, we need to get you fixed up. And don't worry, they won't bother you anymore. You are officially a friend of Rafael. And Rafael knows everybody."

Nico couldn't help but chuckle, that made a little more sense. For all those gulls to hightail it away from him because of a toucan seemed a little farfetched. But a toucan with a reputation might do it.

"I'm Nico. I was brought down here from the-"

"United States at about 12 this afternoon. Come on tourist, hop on my back." Rafael turned and lowered his wings for Nico, who was chuckling.

"You really do know everyone." He shook his head. "I can fly myself."

"I'm sure you can, but you'll end up making those cuts worse before we can make them better. Don't worry, I give my kids rides all the time."

Nico sighed and crawled onto Rafael's back, unwilling to draw out the inevitable.

"How many kids do you have?"

Rafael lifted off, careful of Nico and started gliding towards the bird sanctuary. "Two and another on the way. I don't know what number we'll stop at, but I was thinking about five. Any more would be a nightmare."

"Where are we going?"

Rafael hummed for a moment, thinking about his answer. "The sanctuary. There's this crazy human there that treats all kinds of birds for whatever injuries or illnesses they have. He's a real nutcase, trying to learn how to speak our language."

Nico frowned. That didn't sound like a place of healing at all, especially with a crazy calling the shots. But whatever floats your boat really.

Rafael landed in front of a pair of doors with a bird logo on them, lowering his wings so Nico could get off.

"This is the place?" Nico slid off, careful of Rafael's wings.

"Yep. This is it. I'll come get you tonight. Good luck!" With that, Rafael flew off. It wasn't long after that a man with unkempt brown hair walked out. He had glasses on and a white coat. He immediately saw Nico and the yellow bird started backing up a bit.

Tulio sipped at his coffee, smiling at a recovering bird. They had saved quite a few that month and over half were already back in the wild. He frowned when he heard distant squawking. Listening closely, he heard a final loud squawk from a toucan and frowned. That toucan had been doing that for a while, squawking and leaving an injured bird outside his doors. He supposed it was efficient though.

Tulio quickly put down his coffee and ran to the doors, opening them to see a fleeing toucan and a...canary? When the little bird started backing up, he shushed it and scooped his hands under the bird. It was bleeding and looked exhausted.

He hurried inside and set the bird down on a folded up piece of cloth, filling a bowl with water and picking up another rag to wash off the blood.

* * *

Pedro hummed the tune for his new song, still unable to come up with the words. He had a few lines, but he couldn't get the rest. The song was going to be called "Hot Wings" though. He glanced up at an incoming object and waved, standing up.

"Hey Raffy! Where you been hiding?"

The toucan landed next to him and stretched, smiling.

"You know, kids, helping canaries, the usual."

"Hold up. Canaries?"

"Yep. Some kid got ganged up on by those seagulls. He's a tourist it looks like."

"He a 'free bird'?"

Rafael nodded and grinned. "He hasn't said anything, but he didn't say anything about his family or his owners more importantly. He gave me his name and said he was from the states, but that's all."

"Is he the one that was singing?" Pedro asked, grinning.

Rafael nodded and the cardinal cheered. "Yes! You've gotta take me to see him!"

Rafael shrugged. "Sure. He'll probably still be a little shaken up though. He got six of them."

"Someone needs to do something about those gulls, they're causing a lot of problems."

"Already done. I sent some branch frequenters after them. Said that they beat up a singer."

"Nicely done Raffy. You up for some french fries? You're never away from Eva and the kids."

The two got up in silent agreement and flew towards their favorite restaurant.

* * *

Nico settled down on the soft cloth he was on. He would take this over a peg any day. That Tulio guy was pretty funny. Though, Nico probably shouldn't have messed with him so much. Nico had taught him how to defer dominance. It was all a lie, but the guy seemed happy. And Nico wasn't willing to try to communicate again.

He found himself going in and out of consciousness for the remainder of the evening. Tulio had done a pretty good job with cleaning the cuts and fixing them. There was only one that was kind of deep and it was on his chest.

"Hey, Nico. Pssssst!"

Nico got to his feet and went over to the window where the voice was coming from.

"Hey Rafael!" The window swung open and the toucan went over to him.

"So you're name's Nico?"

Nico looked over at the other voice and frowned. "You're the bird from earlier."

"My name's Pedro. I'm the best singer at the Branch."

Nico frowned. He seemed really cocky, and he wasn't a fan of birds like that.

"The best huh? So what's the Branch?"

Rafael frowned. "The Branch is the most popular bird club in all of Rio. We'll take you there tomorrow."

Nico found himself grinning. "Sounds like a plan."

Rafael offered his back again and Nico got onto him, not missing the concerned look he got from Pedro. Seemed he wasn't completely "holier than thou".

They lifted off and Pedro took to flying behind Rafael. "So what kind of music do you like?"

Nico looked back at him. "Samba of course. There's nothing else like it." Nico found himself smiling. "Ever since I first came to Rio I've been in love with it."

"What would you do if I asked you to sing with me at the Best of the Branch?"

Nico found that Pedro's voice lowered as he asked the question. Was he nervous? "Well, you'd have to ask me first bird." Nico smiled.

Pedro sputtered for a minute before choking out the question. "Will you sing at the Branch with me...please?"

Nico had to suppress the urge to laugh. This bird was a riot. He must not have had many friends. Nico didn't either, but he also wasn't popular. "Of course Pedro, it sounds like fun."

After that, the two had started talking to each other, asking everything from favorite famous birds to favorite color. They found a schedule for when they could meet up to practice, and even started working on the song and choreography.

When they landed in front of the summer house Nico was stuck in, both birds weren't happy to have to part. They had promised to meet up at 10 since Nico's humans would be gone by then. They helped Nico into the house and said their final goodbyes for the night.

Nico flew over to the cage and expertly got inside. His family was sound asleep and he quickly balanced on his peg and fell asleep with them. Tomorrow was going to be a big day after all.


End file.
